1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus including a camera or other image pick-up means in a portable recording and reproducing apparatus and an image pick-up apparatus including a recording and reproducing means that has a recording and reproducing function in a digital camera or the like. Particularly, the present invention relates to an electronic apparatus including an image pick-up means and an image pick-up apparatus including a recording and reproducing means, in which a shutter sound added to image pick-up means is muted when recording is performed.
2. Description of the Related Art
A data input apparatus of an electric camera that is disclosed in Patent literature 1 has conventionally been known, in which an image picked up by a camera using a film or by an electronic camera of a digital type which photographs a subject using CCD and the like is reproduced from a memory and is displayed on a display means such as LCD and the like, and not only an image but also sound is recorded.
FIG. 1 shows a flow chart of the data input apparatus disclosed in patent literature 1, and in the above-mentioned electronic camera the shutter sound is electrically generated similarly to a conventional camera using film, so that a user can recognize by the recorded shutter sound that an image of a predetermined subject was picked up and the picture thereof was recorded.
FIG. 1 shows an operation flow of such an electronic camera in which when a release switch is operated and photographing of a predetermined subject is indicated, an output of the recorded shutter sound is not performed.
In FIG. 1, whether a control switch or a touch plate has been operated is judged by a CPU in step S1. When it is judged that the control switch or the touch panel has not been operated, operation is returned to the step S1, and the processing of the step S1 is repeated. On the other hand, when it is judged that the control switch or the touch plate has been operated, operation proceeds to step S2, and it is judged whether a release switch has been pushed.
When it is judged that the release switch was pushed in the step S2, operation proceeds to step S3, and it is judged whether sound is being recorded at present. When it is judged that the sound is being recorded at present, operation proceeds to step S4; the recoded shutter sound is muted (not to output); and a light-emitting diode provided in an eye-piece of the finder is switched on and illuminated to make a user visually confirm that the operation in which an image of a subject is recorded in a memory card is started.
On the contrary, when it is judged that the sound is not being recorded, operation proceeds to step S6, and the recoded shutter sound is output to make a user acoustically recognize that pick-up of an image of a subject was started.
Next, operation proceeds to step S5, and a picked-up image is recorded in a memory card. After that, operation is returned to the step S1 and the processing started from the step S1 is carried out repeatedly.
Further, in the step S2, when it is judged that the control switch and the touch plate other than the release switch were operated, operation proceeds to step S7 where it is judged whether sound is being recorded at present, and if it is judged that the sound is being recorded, the sound effect corresponding to the operation is not output; on the other hand, if it is judged that the sound is not being recorded, operation proceeds to step S8 and after the predetermined sound effect corresponding to the operation is output, the processing corresponding to the operation is carried out as step S9.
As mentioned above, an input data apparatus is disclosed, in which when the sound is being recorded, the output of the recorded shutter sound and the other sound effect are not performed, so that the recorded shutter sound and the sound effect might not be recorded in a memory card along with the recording sound.
Further, an apparatus in which a video camcorder and a film camera are integrally formed to perform image pick-up by the video camcorder and to perform photographing by the film camera at the same time is proposed. In such an apparatus, when using a film camera, the shutter sound and the operational sound of winding and rewinding of a film are not considered to be problems; however, since the video camera is integrally provided and the above-described sound is directly input into a microphone on the video side, the sound quality when taking the video is deteriorated.
In patent literature 2, an image and audio recording apparatus is disclosed, in which in order to prevent the above-mentioned problems, the operational sound is not recorded even if a film camera is used during the video photographing.
In the image and audio recording apparatus of the above-mentioned patent literature 2, as a method for decreasing or deleting the operational sound of the recording means, referring to the timing chart of FIG. 2, a gain of an amplifier is set at the normal level during the normal video photographing and the normal recording is performed. Hereupon, a method in which when the shutter on the film camera side is pushed as shown in FIG. 2A and the shutter-sound is generated as shown in FIG. 2B, a control circuit detects a shutter start signal and a gain of an amplifier is lowered (or is made to be zero) only in a period of the shutter sound occurring as shown in FIG. 2C; a method of detecting the start signal and selecting a filter that decreases the shutter sound only in a period of the shutter sound occurring; and an image and audio recording apparatus in which a coefficient variable filter is arranged in an audio circuit and a coefficient of the filter is changed in accordance with a coefficient supplied from a coefficient data generation circuit so that the recording sound occurring on the film camera side is removed or decreased, are disclosed.
By removing the recorded shutter sound as shown in the above-mentioned patent literature 1 and patent literature 2, sound can be listened to comfortably when reproduction is performed; however, in the method in which a gain of an amplifier is made to lower only during a period of the shutter sound recording, a problem of also lowering a gain of the recording signal normally recorded occurs and a circuit becomes complicated when a filter is used, which is also a problem.
Patent literature 1: Japanese Published Patent Application H9-331502
Patent literature 2: Japanese Published Patent Application H8-9317